ELUSIVE & ENDANGERED

They are among Australia’s most precious critters, rarely seen and intriguing enough to lure adventurous travellers far into some of the most captivating, wild places. If you’ve already spotted emus and echidnas on your travels and had a dingo howl on the edge of a campfire, it’s time to go further to where these wild things roam.

LUMHOLTZ’S TREE-KANGAROOS

MOUNT HYPIPAMEE NATIONAL PARK, FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND

With just 2000 estimated to roam far north Queensland’s high-altitude rainforests, it’s a lucky day when you spot a nocturnal Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroo. These heavily muscled tree-dwellers look like a cross between a bear and a kangaroo, and their existence first came to light when Indigenous guides led zoologist Carl Lumholtz onto the Cardwell Range in 1882.

Since then, Mount Hypipamee National Park has become the place to spot them. The park also supports a huge variety of gliders and possums, but the tree-kangaroos attract most visitors, along with the park’s dramatic, water-filled volcanic explosion crater with sheer granite walls that plunge 140m deep.

Experts say tree-kangaroos, or Mabi as the traditional owners call them, are too rare to spot, so you can imagine our surprise when we encountered not one, but two on an early morning stroll through the national park. Bounding suddenly onto the path in front of us, the tree-kangaroos climbed just as swiftly away into the canopy above